The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay with Commentary on Every Scene, Interviews, and Little-Known Facts Read online

  The Annotated Godfather

  The Complete Screenplay

  Jenny M. Jones

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  GENESIS OF THE GODFATHER

  THE GODFATHER: THE COMPLETE ANNOTATED SCREENPLAY

  THE AFTERMATH

  APPENDIX I: THE GODFATHER CREDITS

  APPENDIX II: THE GODFATHER TIMELINE

  APPENDIX III: NOTABLE AWARDS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX OF MEMORABLE LINES

  INDEX

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  “What are they getting so excited about? It’s only another gangster picture.”

  —Marlon Brando, 1971

  Looking back thirty-five years after the release of The Godfather, one can’t help but marvel how the film ever got made, when every conceivable obstacle stood in its way.

  A writer who didn’t want to write it.

  Mario Puzo was broke and needed to pen something commercial in order to write the kind of books he really cared about.

  A studio that didn’t want to produce it.

  The box-office failure of previous gangster movies made Paramount Pictures reluctant to pick up their option, but with the novel a runaway success, and other studios showing interest, they couldn’t let it slip away.

  A film no director would touch.

  Twelve directors turned it down, including, at first, Francis Ford Coppola. But, Coppola, too, was broke, and needed a job directing a Hollywood production in order to make the kind of personal films he really cared about.

  A cast of unknowns.

  Except for one renowned actor, Marlon Brando, who was considered box office poison by studio executives.

  A community against it.

  Before filming even began, Italian-American groups protested what they perceived was to be the movie’s characterization of their culture, and amassed a war chest to stop the production.

  And, yet, The Godfather succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, to become one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces in history—a film that continues to captivate us, decades after its release.

  The Godfather is a unique film in that it bridges many audiences, appealing to both erudite film buffs and TV couch potatoes alike. As film critic Kenneth Turan says, it is irresistible: “Like one of those potato chips, you can’t have only one of it. It is a film that, once started or stumbled upon on TV, demands to be seen all the way to the end. It is that well-constructed, that hypnotic, simply that good.” Even Al Pacino admits that, when he’s flipping the channels and comes across The Godfather, he can’t help but keep watching.

  But why is the film still so compelling today? Certainly the thrill of looking inside the particular subculture that The Godfather explores, in conjunction with the movie’s intense action and drama, is endlessly entertaining. There are two other central reasons to love the film. The first is in the details. With each new viewing, a different, distinct detail reveals itself: the jarring crunch of gravel under Michael’s feet after Carlo is murdered; the blustery performance of Sterling Hayden; the exquisite marriage of Nino Rota’s haunting score with the dazzling Sicilian landscape. The details are no accident. In addition to Coppola’s dogged efforts to infuse the film with the flavor and intricacies of his own Italian-American experiences, he assembled an incredible collection of talent to create the film. From the cinematographer to the production designer, from the makeup artist to the special-effects wizard, from the costume designer to the casting director, from Brando to Pacino—only today can the wonder of such a gifted group, working together on one movie set, be fully appreciated.

  Another reason The Godfather is such a powerful film is that it works both on the grand level of an epic—with its stunning cinematography, magnificent performances, and comment on the rise of postwar America and capitalism—and on the very intimate level of the story of one family. The father-son relationship, sibling dynamics, and the quest to find oneself within the context of the family, are themes that are not only relatable, they are infinitely mineable. Michael’s soulful struggle of how to react to, reject, resolve, and ultimately become part of his family is a struggle for the ages—and one that deepens with each viewing.

  The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay endeavors to tell the story of The Godfather by offering behind-the-scenes stories and insight in tandem with the screenplay of The Godfather. The screenplay of the 1972 film featured herein incorporates much of Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo’s own wording from their final, pre-production draft or shooting script (officially titled “Third Draft,” completed on March 29, 1971). This look back at the monumental film also traces the development of the screenplay and explores the evolution of several subsequent versions and re-edits of the film that appeared after 1972. Among those different versions are The Godfather Saga, a four-part miniseries broadcast on NBC in 1977, which combined The Godfather and its sequel, The Godfather: Part II, in mostly chronological order, with some restored scenes that did not appear in the original theatrical release; The Godfather 1902-1959: The Complete Epic (a.k.a. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television), a video boxed set released in 1981 in the same format as Saga but with fewer restored scenes; and The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980, a re-editing of all three Godfathers in mostly chronological order, with even more additional footage, released in 1992.

  This book offers a cohesive story of the making of the film by analyzing a wide range of source material. In addition to the various versions of the script, alternate and deleted scenes, and modified releases of the film, The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay also draws upon Puzo’s original novel, production documents housed at the American Zoetrope Research Library in Rutherford, California, and interviews with some of the cast and crew. Onetime Paramount executive Peter Bart has likened the story of The Godfather’s production to the Akira Kurosawa film Rashômon, in which each time a single event is described by a different witness, it comes out as an entirely different story. Looking at it through the refracted lens of time and perspective, the volatile mix of personalities involved and the struggles to complete the film according to Coppola’s vision proved, in the end, to be instrumental in making The Godfather what it is today—a landmark of American cinema.

  GENESIS OF

  THE GODFATHER

  I

  MARIO PUZO AND THE NOVEL

  “None of the grown-ups I knew were charming or loving or understanding. Rather they seemed coarse, vulgar, and insulting. And so later in my life when I was exposed to all the clichés of lovable Italians, singing Italians, happy-go-lucky Italians, I wondered where the hell the moviemakers and storywriters got all their ideas from.”

  —Mario Puzo, The Godfather Papers: and Other Confessions

  Mario Puzo was born in 1920 in impoverished Hell’s Kitchen, the son of Italian-born parents. His first two novels, The Dark Arena (1955) and The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965), earned good reviews but weak sales and a mere $6,500 for Puzo’s bank account. Puzo had written about a character influenced by the world of organized crime in Pilgrim, and an editor suggested it could have done better with more of that “Mafia stuff.” At age forty-five, Puzo owed $20,000 in gambling debts, so he wrote a ten-page book outline entitled Mafia—an attempt at a more commercial novel. Eight publishers turned it down.

  At a meeting at G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Puzo regaled the editors with Mafia stories, imp
ressing them enough to give him a $5,000 book advance. Puzo had never known a mobster or gangster, so he had to do exhaustive research for the book.

  Two years before the book was completed, Puzo remained strapped for cash. Paramount Vice President of Creative Affairs Peter Bart received a tip from George Weiser, a story editor who freelanced as a literary scout for Paramount, and based on sixty pages, he set Puzo up at the studio. In an interview with the author, Bart reported: “It was not a real manuscript, just a few chapters, into which he had crammed a lot of the plot. It was a long way from a finished manuscript. At that point I said to Bob [Evans], ‘Look, even though you’re not enthusiastic, it is much beyond a Mafia story,’ so I optioned it at Paramount.” Puzo was so broke, he agreed—against his agent’s advice—to accept a deal of a paltry $12,500 option, $80,000 if it was made into a film, with escalators. Paramount kept giving him little advances—said Robert Evans, senior vice president of Paramount, in Variety: “We had to give him the bread to keep him alive while he was writing the book. We never expected it to be the huge success it has turned out to be.”

  CRAFTING THE GODFATHER SCRIPT

  Puzo was thrilled with his office at Paramount, which had a refrigerator with an unlimited supply of soda. He cut the 446-page novel down to a 150-page first draft of a screenplay (dated August 10, 1970), and mailed a copy to the one man he envisioned as Vito Corleone, Marlon Brando. The screenplay opened with Michael and Kay driving to the wedding, followed by a courthouse scene of Bonasera’s daughter’s attackers being acquitted. A reedited version begins with a love scene between Michael and Kay (suggested by the studio). When Francis Ford Coppola first saw the screenplay, he was aghast. It was set in the 1970s, complete with hippies. He described it in Time magazine: “Puzo’s screenplay had turned into a slick, contemporary gangster picture of no importance. It wasn’t Puzo’s fault. He just did what they told him to do.”

  After thoroughly analyzing and dissecting the novel, Coppola crafted his own treatment of a screenplay. He gave it to Puzo, and they proceeded to swap halves of the script to edit from their respective home bases. A second draft of a screenplay emerged, at 173 pages and dated March 1, 1971. The third and final preshooting draft (referred to in this book as the shooting script), was dated March 29 and ran 158 pages—suggesting a longer picture than Paramount had imagined.

  In March 1967 Paramount announced their deal to back Puzo’s material in the hopes of eventually making it into a movie. Two years later, The Godfather was published. It was a smash, spending sixty-seven weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Three months after publication, when other studios started showing interest, Paramount confirmed their rights to produce the film. According to Variety: “Paramount Pictures probably made the prime deal for a bestseller in modern film history with its $80,000 ceiling for Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.” They called it, quite rightly, a “bargain-basement literary buy.”

  MARIO PUZO, IN HOLLYWOOD IN JUNE 1970, WHILE WORKING ON THE GODFATHER SCRIPT.

  Against convention, producer Albert S. Ruddy wanted to keep the author involved in the movie project. They lunched at the Plaza, where Ruddy cautioned him about the pitfalls of feeling too much ownership over the book. Puzo, who has always said he penned The Godfather to finance the writing he really wanted to do, threw the book on the floor, professing he never cared to read it again. So in April, Puzo was contracted to turn out The Godfather screenplay for an additional $100,000, expenses, and a few percentage points of the profits. It took Paramount a long five months to actually sign a director to the project.

  MARIO PUZO ON SET

  Puzo felt excluded from the filming, and Paramount didn’t allow him to see the final cut when he wished to. He grudgingly realized he had no final say over the film, and said in The Hollywood Reporter: “You can’t say I’m delirious with joy over what they’ve done to my book for the movie, even though I’ve done the screenplay.” He even swore a Sicilian vendetta against Paramount vice president Robert Evans (most likely in jest). Speculation was that The Godfather Papers: and Other Confessions, Puzo’s memoir published just before the film’s release, was going to be an angry exposé. It turned out to be fairly tame in its criticism. While he vowed never to do another film unless he had final approval, Puzo did go on to write the screenplay for The Godfather: Part II, and Part III, and the first draft of Superman, among others.

  II

  PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND THE EXECUTIVES

  “Making The Godfather was such an extraordinarily unpleasant experience in every aspect that I’ve avoided thinking about it or talking about it for thirty years.”

  —Peter Bart, at the 2006 South by Southwest Film Festival

  Through the 1960s, Hollywood was in an economic downturn, with dwindling movie attendance and declining production. Major takeovers ruled the day: MCA and Universal Pictures merged; Warner Bros. was bought by Kinney National Company (which had previously primarily owned funeral parlors and parking lots); and the conglomerate Gulf+Western bought Paramount Pictures. As the 1970s began, Paramount was ranked a dismal ninth among film studios.

  Paramount’s 1968 big-budget Kirk Douglas vehicle The Brotherhood, a Mafia picture, opened to anemic ticket sales. Although The Godfather novel was selling well, The Brotherhood’s weak box office made Paramount gun-shy about mob movies, and they shelved the project.

  Paramount had its fair share of recent big-budget disasters, exemplified by the aptly titled Waterloo. Then, over Christmas of 1970, Love Story burst onto the movie scene. With a $106 million return on a $2.2 million investment, Love Story changed the fortunes of Paramount Pictures. Paramount had nurtured the bestselling novel through the writing process, and the small-budget film excelled without major star power. As gangbuster sales of Puzo’s book forced Paramount to take another look at their film option, they would try to re-create Love Story’s success using the same formula on The Godfather. In late 1969, Paramount announced they would make the film. And, as producer Albert Ruddy says today, “they saw it as a low-budget gangster movie.”

  THE PLAYERS

  The new young executives at Paramount strove to adapt the company to the current climate in Hollywood with fewer movies, smaller budgets, and less extravagant stars.

  CHARLES G. BLUHDORN, CHAIRMAN OF GULF+WESTERN INDUSTRIES, IN 1971.

  CHARLES G. BLUHDORN,

  COMPANY FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, GULF+WESTERN

  The brash and vulgar Bluhdorn took a failing auto parts distributor and built it into Gulf+Western Industries, Inc., subsuming some sixty-five companies, Paramount Pictures included. Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie features a parody of the company, called Engulf and Devour. Dubbed “The Mad Austrian,” Bluhdorn was a hot-tempered, heavily accented executive who liked to bark orders. Although Paramount was only a small part of Gulf+Western, he took great interest in it. He compared Coppola’s work on The Godfather to having the secret to Coca-Cola.

  STANLEY JAFFE,

  CEO, PARAMOUNT PICTURES

  At the young age of twenty-eight, Stanley Jaffe produced Goodbye, Columbus and was appointed executive vice president and chief corporate officer of Paramount Pictures shortly thereafter. Jaffe left Paramount in early April, just as production on The Godfather was about to begin. Rumors that his resignation (or firing) was connected to The Godfather’s production abound, but both Robert Evans and Peter Bart have suggested he left because of a fight with Bluhdorn over the casting of a woman in another picture. Oddly enough, Jaffe returned as CEO of Paramount again, in 1991.

  FRANK YABLANS,

  HEAD OF MARKETING/VICE PRESIDENT FOR DOMESTIC SALES, BECAME PRESIDENT OF PARAMOUNT

  The young, hard-nosed Yablans oversaw Paramount for four years, often called “The Golden Age of Paramount,” during which time the studio released such critical and financial successes as The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, Serpico, Paper Moon, Chinatown, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Longest Yard. He masterminded a ground-breaking distribution plan for
The Godfather that helped make it one of the most successful films in history.

  ROBERT EVANS,

  SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT IN CHARGE OF WORLDWIDE PRODUCTION, PARAMOUNT

  Bob Evans lived large. As a youth, he worked for Evan-Picone sportswear (“I’m in ladies’ pants,” he liked to say) and was “discovered” by Norma Shearer at The Beverly Hills Hotel pool. After a few acting gigs he decided to become a producer. When Bluhdorn offered him the highly visible job at Paramount, he had yet to make a single film. The New York Times called it “Bluhdorn’s Folly,” one of the nicer assessments at the time. Very hands-on with his pet projects, Evans clashed with the also opinionated Coppola throughout the making of The Godfather. Evans also presided over some of the best films in Paramount’s history.

  PETER BART,

  VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCTION, PARAMOUNT

  Bart, a West Coast correspondent for The New York Times, wrote a piece on Robert Evans for the Sunday edition. Evans contends this is how he first caught Bluhdorn’s eye, which Bart finds amusing, as the piece was rather snarky. Once he became a vice president, Evans picked Bart to be his right-hand man. Bart was the creative side of the team, shepherding projects like The Godfather through a long development process. Over eight years, he developed such films as Paper Moon, Harold and Maude, True Grit, and Rosemary’s Baby. His book-smart personality was a great fit with Evans’s business acumen and gut-level instinct. It was Bart’s idea to hire Francis Ford Coppola. “I began advocating Coppola because I felt that Francis was a brilliant young filmmaker, even though he hadn’t shown his prowess yet. He was extraordinarily intelligent and well spoken—so I was indeed the most aggressive advocate of Francis as the person to direct the picture.”—Peter Bart, 2007.

  PRODUCER ALBERT S. RUDDY, IN 1971.